Endoscopic operating techniques have gained widespread use in a large number of surgical procedures. An important advantage of procedures performed by endoscopy is that there is no need for a large incision to be made in the skin and in the underlying tissue in order to gain access to the operating site, and it is thus possible to reduce the burden on the patient and the duration of inpatient treatment. Instead, in endoscopic operations, endoscopes or endoscopic instruments are guided through one or more fairly small incisions or even through a natural access route to the operating site, where the surgical manipulations necessary for performing the procedure can be performed. Particularly if a natural access route is used in order to perform a procedure in a hollow organ or to perform a procedure in the abdomen, for example, through an incision in the wall of the hollow organ, it is advantageous to be able to insert a flexible endoscope through the natural access route together with endoscopic instruments needed to perform the procedure.
Endoscope sheaths have therefore been developed which allow a flexible endoscope to be guided to an operating site together with an endoscopic working instrument.
US 2012/0095291 A1 discloses an endoscope sheath having a first channel for the insertion of an endoscope, wherein a wall enclosing the first channel has a second channel into which an operating instrument can be inserted. The second channel is wound in the form of a helix around the first channel, such that a longitudinal direction of the second channel deviates from a longitudinal direction of the first channel. This has the effect that an endoscopic working instrument guided beyond the distal end of the second channel extends obliquely with respect to the direction of the distal end of an endoscope inserted into the first channel.
According to DE 600 28 014 T2, a controllable endoscope jacket encloses an endoscope, and the jacket also has two lumens that provide channels for the insertion of surgical instruments. To control the deflection of the distal end of the lumens, a wire element is provided that extends along the walls of the lumens and adjacent to the endoscope.